Library Commission May 15, 2025 meeting

SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY COMMISSION

Minutes of theRegular Meeting of MAY 15, 2025

The San Francisco Public Library Commission held a regular meeting May 15, 2025, atthe Koret Auditorium, Main Library and virtually on Zoom.

The SFPLCommissionmeeting was called to order at 4:30 PM.

Commissioners Present: Wolf, Huang, Jones, and Calhoun.

President Wolf presented the ancestral homeland acknowledgement ofthe Ramaytush Ohlone.

AGENDA ITEM NO. 1 GENERAL PUBLIC COMMENT

Public Comment

Stacy Smith said he had an administrative hearing, and the hearing officer did not have access to the appeal and video footage, which countered the incident report.

Peter Warfield, Executive Director of Library Users Association Libraryusers2004@yahoo.com, PO Box 170544, San Francisco California 94117-0544, said there are threats against anyone with the top political person in the country including libraries, which the Commission should consider.

Emily Garvie, Executive Director, Friends of the Library, gave updates of Friends work for the Library including raising $560,000 through the 2025 Laureates event.

Walt Bilofsky, SF Bay Chapter Freedom From Religion said The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence were going to make public comment about SFPL joining Books Unbanned.

Jason Gibbs, who retired from the Library, learned about the strategic plan, which one discussion was of joy and wonder at the Library, which happens when the trained professionals help patrons find the book or item they are looking for, they are astounded by the system.

Comment
My name is Jason Gibbs. I've recently retired from the library, but about a year ago while I was still employed learned a lot about the strategic plan which I was not involved with. one of the things that was very heartening in the discussion was sthe discussion of joy and wonder at the library and I thought I'd tell you a little bit about joy and wonder. 

It's not uncommon that someone will come into the library who doesn't use the library. Somebody will give them a piece of paper with a number for a book on it. They don't know what to do. There are so many books. But then you lead them to the shelf, there it is. And they are just astounded that we have the system where you can find that one book. 

But it's not really magic that does it. It has to do with trained professionals. Somebody had to select the book. Somebody had to negotiate the contract so we could buy the book. The book arrives. We have to do physical processing, cataloging. It has to get transported to the library. Then it gets shelved. then it has a life on the shelf. Somebody has to decide do we keep it, do we withdraw it and um all these things are done by dedicated professionals. 

So it really isn't magic. It's involvement of systems of people who are overlooked and and not really mentioned in all the sort of wonderful things you like to talk about. I feel like you should know that wonderful things are happening among the staff that we have systems in place. we have dedicated people and that the maintenance every day of a collection that serves the public is what we are all dedicated to and um I hope you will be dedicated to.

Ruben Juarez said he was a representative of SEIU, which welcomes the new and returning Commissioners back.

AGENDA ITEM NO. 2 APPROVAL OF MINUTES – APRIL 17, 2025

Ruben Juarez asked for a correction in the minutes.

Peter Warfield said the minutes do not include every time he mentions his contact information and are brief.

Commission Discussion

Motion: Motion by Vice President HUANG to approve the minutes with one edit seconded by Commissioner CALHOUN to approve the APRIL 17, 2025, Commission Minutes.

Action: AYES 4-0 (Wolf, Huang, Jones and Calhoun)

AGENDA ITEM NO.3 PROGRAMMING PERFORMANCE METRICS

Dolly Goyal, Chief of Public Services and Angel Castro, Administrative Analyst presented Library programming and performance metrics, which are aligned with fulfilling vision 2030 Strategic Priorities of Literary Champion, Cultural Amplifier, Community Catalyzer, Thoughtful Navigator and Resource Provider. They highlighted that although programing has not yet returned to pre-Covid levels they are on track to deliver more than 14,700 programs for all ages, a 63% increase for all programs compared to fiscal year 23 which is when they begin to ramp up programming numbers following the pandemic.

[Michael Lambert: I just want to highlight that over for over a decade now, the San Francisco Public Library has been intentional about delivering a more experiential service model, hosting thousands of events, performances, classes, workshops, story times every year, drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors. So this has been a growth area for us as we continue to make the transition from a more traditional service model which has centered around more transactional touch points for our residents.]

Public Comment

Peter Warfield said he generally does not have a problem with what is being presented, but he did not hear about books or anything at all about how to access the tremendously rich collection at the library.

Ruben Juarez said for every program there is preparation for physical preparation that goes into getting the space ready. There is a prep whether it's an in-house program or someone from the outside.

Comment:
Wonderful presentation. I um just wanted to speak to what programs involve. So just to flesh it out and this will be a little granular. 

So for every program there's preparation for it. The physical preparation that goes into getting a space ready. There's a prep for whether in-house prep or somebody coming from the outside.There's a preparation there on the para-professional side which is where I'm at. Working with the talent to make sure they feel comfortable with the physical landscape when they come in. Is there anything we can do to help with the setup? Do we need to put a screen up? So there's a lot involved on that end. 

And obviously there's the the program itself which is always such a such a delightful thing because on our end to see an audience that's happy. Because one of the other pieces we have to do is get the count for how many people are attending the program and then afterwards after the program's over and, you know, thank you for coming, please come back and see us again see you soon, you know, that piece of it. 

There is the breakdown where we had to put everything away. And then the next level which is looking at the program. What could we have done better? What can how can we improve upon it? Are there things that we might have missed? So there's a lot of different elements that go into a program. I'm sharing all this just to I know I'm getting granular. Sharing all this to give you all a sense of what a program entails and the work that's involved in it. And I think when we're being intentional in looking at resources to involve staff in terms of this process would be important given all that happens. Thank you so much.

Jason Gibbs, retired Librarian, said he noticed over the past few years there is an inflation in the demand to give programming to the point where there is conflicting programming that divides up the audience. He said it used to be typical for a program to have 100 people attend.

The one thing I noticed over the past few years is a great inflation in the demand to give programming to the where there's conflicting programming that where you basically divide up your audience and you don't really get the attendance you want. Early in my career, it was pretty typical to have a program in here where 100 people was normal, often more. Nowadays, you know, it's it's hard to bring in that many people. I think because of just the inflation of activity going on. 

The other thing I'm sort of concerned about is this preference of the experiential versus service. I mean I'm old-fashioned, but to me the job is all about service, about being there to serve the public day in and day out to provide them access to the resources of the library. And it it is a telling thing about the strategic plan and and the discussion of all this like Mr. Warfield said that that the book is left out and I guess it is a four-letter word. 

Because there are still people dedicated to the book and I know the staff is too and there's a way I think to follow up. We used to do programming where we would uintroduce databases, how to search the collection but that has all been deemphasized. So I think that that is a worthy goal. Thank you.

Commission Discussion

Commissioner Calhoun thanked staff for the presentation and asked if on the slide with the patron satisfaction where pretty much everything was green, were there things below the fold there may be rated differently. Randy McClure, Chief Analytics, responded that on the topic of programming this is the complete set of questions. Commissioner Jones said the work was incredible and this is the power of the systems working together to make all the programming come to life. She asked that for the data to separate out adult versus youth in the diagnostics, it would help the team understand where some of the pain points are and feel focused about supporting patrons effectively.

Vice President Huang said he is proud of SFPL programming and congratulated to everyone who has done anything r for a single program and would like to understand the framework by which you consider what better means. President Wolf said it is fascinating to notice that youth programs have been cut in half since, and adult programming has doubled, this is a great shift and asked if it was this intentional and how does staff set goals each year for the kind of balance and the kind of participation they want.

City Librarian said coming out of COVID, they were focused on recovery and the restoration of what they had prepandemic. Michelle Jeffers, Chief of Community Programs and Partnerships (CPP) said hiring after the pandemic, as we were down some children's librarians, took some tome to get fully staffed up and adult attendance does reflect online programs, which we don't see kids coming to online programs.

AGENDA ITEM NO. 4 CITY LIBRIARIAN’S REPORT

Jess Ouyang and Sachiko Iwabuchi, CPP presented highlights of Weaving Stories: Asian American, Native Hawaiian & Pacific Islander Heritage month including curated book lists that connect patrons to library materials, the Asian Pacific Islander American a (APIA) biography project, which includes educating the public about APIA Americans and a website created for K- 12 students and a Sake and Shochu event in partnership with the Consulate- General of Japan. Ruben Balderas, CPP, presented Dia de los Ninos/Dia de los Libros 2025, a celebration of children and books. The first Dia event was held in 1999 and each year since then organizers continue to volunteer time and resources to champion and promote literacy and unite families of all cultures through a community-based child center event. They gave away a thousand children's books in English and Spanish, the annual celebration has distributed over 25,000 multilingual books in the community.

Michelle Jeffers gave highlights from the Jewish American Heritage Month, a new program started this month. Jeffers said this heritage needs to be celebrated in San Francisco and that the Jewish community has been instrumental in this city since gold rush days. The celebrations included a series of family programs, author talks, concerts and workshops.

Public Comment

Peter Warfield said he was glad to hear about programming that included books.

Commission Discussion

Commissioner Calhoun said he agrees that there is a lack of programming around Jewish heritage and asked what kinds of questions they asked about impact as they were putting that programming. Jeffers said they talked to partners before planning any programs to identify what was missing and they are working with a pro bono consultant to bring in more questioning and more evaluation of the programs. City Librarian Lambert said through Vision 2030 and implementing our new strategic plan, part of that process for the upcoming fiscal year is to develop criteria to assess programs success and what to sunset. President Connie Wolf said the public programs are at the core of who the library is in reaching community partnerships and every program is free and accessible.

PRESIDENT WOLF ADJOURNED THE MEETING at 6:01 PM

Margot Shaub, Commission Affairs Analyst